Voicemail systems allow a caller to leave a recorded voice message for a called party when the called party is unwilling or unavailable to take the call. Whether the voicemail system is deployed with a private branch exchange (PBX) switch or with a voicemail server, a mailbox is typically assigned for each user, or user agent client device (e.g., phone, PDA, portable email retrieval device, mobile phone, personal computer, laptop, application specific devices, etc.) associated with a user, in the communication system. The voicemail system is much like an answering machine on a client device but with important advantages. One advantage of a voicemail system is that users no longer need to spend money on answering machine tapes, which tend to wear out after extended use. One problem with voicemail systems and answering machines alike is that a caller leaving the voice message may leave a low quality message either because the tape has worn out or because of other factors such as background noise, bad connections, and so on. Often times the caller is unaware that they have left a low quality message and further unaware that the recipient of the message may not be able to understand the message due to its low quality.
There have been some solutions to this particular problem. For instance, systems have been developed that allow a caller to review an entire message after it has been recorded. This allows the caller to ensure that a high quality, or at least an understandable, message has been left for the recipient. One problem with this particular solution, however, is that the caller has to wait until the entire message has been left before they can review the quality of the message. This is particularly cumbersome when the caller leaves a long message only to find out that some or the entire message was of low quality at which point the caller has to leave the entire message again for the recipient.
Another solution that exists is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,219,638, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated herein by this reference. The '638 patent describes a system that allows a caller leaving a voicemail to listen to or view a text transcription of the voicemail. This allows the user to review the message text for errors and edit any problems that occurred in the voice-to-text conversion due to message quality issues. Again, this solution has the drawback that the caller has to wait until the entire message is left before they can review it for quality.
There are also some systems that inform participants of a conference call that their voice/video quality is below a particular standard. Such systems are useful in that they allow the participants to determine that the conference quality is sub-standard and further allow the participants to transfer conferencing equipment if necessary. This is somewhat redundant in the conference call technology because the other participants usually serve as an immediate quality checkpoint for the other participants. More specifically, if one participant cannot understand what another participant has said, that participant will likely ask the speaking participant to repeat what they said. Such systems have not yet been extended to voicemail applications where there is no human participant on the receiving end of the message when it is being sent.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a voicemail system that helps a caller ensure that they are leaving a high quality voicemail instead of waiting until the caller has left the entire message before a quality review is performed.